JKJSK · Semiotic and Somatic Foundations of Subjectivity: A study of body and desire in movement and language through the legacies of Judith S. Kestenberg and Julia Kristeva

The interplay between bodily rhythms, affect, and pre-symbolic origins of subjectivity has been a subject of inquiry across psychoanalysis, semiotics, and developmental psychology. This project explores these concepts by bringing two influential but rarely connected thinkers into a conceptual dialogue: philosopher Julia Kristeva (b. 1941) and psychoanalyst Judith S. Kestenberg (1910-1999). Kristeva’s theorisation of the proto-linguistic semiotic dimension and Kestenberg’s work on the rhythms of muscle tension flow provide complementary insights into the formative stages of subjectivity. A cross-reading of these two perspectives contributes to a deeper understanding of the interface between bodily experience and symbolic inscription. Through textual analysis and embodied research, the project explores how rhythmic somato-affective exchanges shape early affect regulation and proto-subjective structures. It foregrounds a feminist approach to the analysis of subjectivity in historical psychoanalytic discourse as well as its implications for contemporary embodied therapeutic approaches. This project will forge novel transdisciplinary dialogue between feminist humanities, psychoanalysis, somatic research, and developmental psychology. The objective of this project is to develop an interdisciplinary model of feminist, embodied intersubjectivity based on Kestenberg’s and Kristeva’s concepts. The project will engage stakeholders through developing a professional manual including a policy paper and practitioner’s toolkit with specific remit to embodied, rhythm-based interventions applicable to psychosocial and family support. A public-facing digital platform will support engagement across clinical, academic, and artistic communities. The project seeks to produce socially impactful scholarship by fostering policy innovation and practice development, offering new tools for working with culturally marginalised populations.